Sabanto Takes Autonomy ‘Leap’ with Bayer Investment

Big news in the precision technology world. Sabanto takes another leap in its quest for widespread autonomy after receiving a big funding round from Leaps by Bayer, which is the strategic investment unit of Bayer. Sabanto’s goal is to expand its dealer network and increase the production and deployment of its retrofit kits in row crop operations. The kits essentially transform tractors into fully autonomous machines with a cloud-connected communications system, multiple GNSS receivers, obstacle-detecting sensors, cameras and AI. A couple weeks ago, we shared the story of Quint Pottinger, who used the Sabanto kit to autonomously plant over 800 corn acres, many of which were no-tilled into thick cereal rye. Sabanto CEO and founder Craig Rupp tells me other farmers have saved big money on labor and equipment costs with autonomy, and 3 years from now, the technology is going to be everywhere. “It’s going to be mainstream. And the future I see is multiple smaller systems versus one large system. It makes complete sense to me. You go out with a 400-horsepower machine versus four smaller 100-horsepower machines. When you unleash a 400-horespower tractor into a field and the field gets done in two hours, you’re going to be spending the day chasing the tractor, moving it from one to the other. Whereas smaller systems, they’re going to take a little bit longer and you have redundancy. It’s more scalable. I get more acres. I can just get one smaller system as opposed to spending $2 million for a large system. They’re easier to work on. They’re less complicated. They’re more fuel efficient. And that’s the future I see three years from now. You know what? If I go back three years and if I said there’s going to be a day when a farmer’s going to farm all his corn acres autonomously, everyone would’ve laughed at me. If I would’ve said it a year ago, they would’ve said, ‘No, it’s not going to happen.’ It happened already. Quint (Pottinger).” Craig formed a farmer advisory board of about 24 farmers. They meet with COO Corey Spaetti once a month to receive updates on the technology, and give their feedback on how it can be improved. Watch the full Video of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.